in fact, at one point, you saw president obama shaking hands with cuba's president, castro. when south africa's current president took the stage, you could hear the crowd booing. >> graca michel -- [ speaking foreign language ] the entire mandela family. >> the government is playing ten days of tributes to nelson mandela. sunday was the national day of prayer. for the rest of the week, mandela will lie in state in pretoria, where he was originally tried and sentenced to life in prison. he'll be buried in the small rural town of his ancestry on sunday. the events over the next few days will cover more than 600 miles and it starts with today's memorial in soweto. mandela's casket will travel to pretoria and friday will be buried 555 miles south. i'm joined lester holt in south africa. lester, paint the picture what's going on there now. and how did folks brave the elements so far? >> well, chuck, first of all, forgive odd-looking microphone. i'm told it's the best way to deal with the very loud sound over here. i know it looks a little weird. anyway, this is about to end. it's